#i dunno if americans understand this but

[simptasia]

why didn't charlie call claire "luv". why didn't he throw out a casual luv at his friends. he's a northerner what else is he good for

[burinazar]

[note: i know for a fact i'm doing this for the same reason that i fixate on nebulous fandom anxieties at other times: helplessness regarding anxieties about larger geopolitical issues]

feeling in a very weird position right now thinking about the fact theres a nonzero chance that either one of the cosplayers ive become acquainted with or someone in their immediate circle could do brownface in the future and people are gonna come at me like 'hey why are you not calling them out and/or giving them a racial sensitivity seminar and/or personally fistfighting them on the floor of the doujin circle event'

[cabinetduo]

that post abt "no that Korean speaker is not saying the nword post" pissed me tf off. I wasn't gnna say anything but yall will truly use any excuse to be all "I'm not touching you racist" to black people. it's old ass discourse that maybe yall don't know bcs yall aren't black but not once has anyone been like "oh that person speaking an entire different language with an entirely different alphabet is clearly saying a racial slur". maybe nonblack people who wanna speak for us but it's like. a whole thing. It's making up fictional black people to get mad at. calling "Americans" self-centered in the notes is crazy when we know exactly what Americans you are talking about!!

[mothinabottle]

English or Spanish

Omg I think I know who you are! I missed you so much!! 💙💙

As for the question—Both. I can do both, but I miss writing in spanish 😅

Like, idk I just think spanish is more expressive and fun, plus I kinda wish more latam fellas were in this fandom 😞

[fairy-spring]

Sometimes I wonder if people would look at my interpretation of Gerudo lore and how I use it and my OC to explore my own feelings as diaspora and think I’m being racist

[mummer]

looking into israeli voting demographics and objectively it’s nuts that “ashkenazis with second homes in new york” are the ones that are relatively more lefty pro peace (emphasis on *relatively* lol) and sephardim/mizrahim are the majority voting for the right wing bloc. and younger voters (unlike most other countries) are far more right wing than older ones…?? what is going on over there

[darkdragon768]

I need to make another list where I'm listing every game I own and am ticking off every game I've played through.

Oh boy, over 150 entries here I come.

[quietmtntown]

being pro palestine does not mean you have to be antsemetic.. killing innocence's on either side is wrong and immoral.. if you dont agree then i dont know what to tell ya. cause its not wrong to say.. don't kill isreal/palestine babies.. and hama is trash while supporting paestine is based. cause.. honestly i hate biden at this point for bombing on babies just how iw was disgusted by hamas killing babies. retaliation is never the right response. I hated how america bombed japan and killed billions of innocent people back in ww2 . bloodshed should not equal more bloodshed.. . .

this whole situation is depressing.

[toastbite]

I just wanna let y'all teens know that life gets better. Live as hard as you can. I was a depressed teen dealing with lots of trauma, abuse, and mental illness, but I survived. And I'm so happy! And now I'm not just surviving, but living.

[my-castles-crumbling]

bookshop au - @wolfstarmicrofic - word count: 388

Today was the day.

After months of mooning over Leather Jacket, the nameless customer that came into the bookshop Remus worked at every Tuesday, Remus was going to do something. Say something.

Right?

But when Leather Jacket walked in, Remus's resolve broke, and not even an encouraging look from Lily made him feel more confident.

"Hey. How can I help you today?" he asked the man, trying to control his smile. He got way too excited to see him, considering he didn't know his name.

"How much do you know about knitting from the 1800s, Remus?" Leather Jacket asked, his light eyes boring holes into Remus's heart.

"Not much....erm....you can probably find it in the crafting section," he answered helpfully, leading the way.

It took them almost an twenty minutes to find the book the man needed. A whole history of knitting, starting from ancient Egypt. All the while, they chatted and laughed and it was so easy, and Remus found himself wishing it had taken longer to find the damn book.

"Remus, can I ask you something?" Leather Jacket asked, his eyes bright.

"Erm, sure," Remus nodded, feeling self-conscious. Did he know?

"Do I look like the type to study ancient knitting?" the man asked, his tone genuine.

"Erm...no? I dunno," Remus stuttered, feeling like this was a test he was not understanding.

"What about symbolism in ancient American poetry? Growing foreign vegetables during the off-season? Teaching children to sing in Vietnamese?" Leather Jacket said, listing off some of the topics he'd requested previously, still serious.

"Erm...well, I've never thought too hard about-" Remus shrugged, but the man cut him off.

"I just...I come in here for you. To see you," he man smiled a bit. "I thought I was being bloody obvious, but I'm starting to think-"

"Wait, you do?" Remus asked, genuinely shocked. He'd just thought the man had niche interests.

"Yes!" the man laughed. "Alright, let me do this proper. Erm...I'm Sirius. Like the star."

Remus grinned to himself, remembering the first time Sirius had come into the shop. For an Astronomy book.

"And I'd like to take you for coffee, maybe?" Sirius finished, looking slightly nervous."

But Remus grinned. "As long as we don't have to talk about the history of knitting."

Sirius sighed, chuckling. "Absolutely not."

[royalarchivist]

Tubbo: I swear to God, Chat - I promise you, if it's the last thing I do, I am going to break up Fit and Pac.

Mike passed the crown of #1 Hideduo hater to Tubbo, and Tubbo took that title very seriously.

[ Full Subtitle Transcript ↓ ]

-

Pac: I have a date with Fit tomorrow! You know the news, Tubbo?

[ Tubbo's Homophobic Arc ]

Pac: I got a date with Fit tomorrow!

Tubbo: You're - no... You're kidding..

Pac: Yeah, for real! Look - Mike shaved my hair you know, and gave me a new outfit so I can be like, sharp for tomorrow. ...You guys like it? You like it, Sunny?

[Judgemental silence]

Tubbo: That's so cool man, what he hell. That's fckin' sick.

Pac: Yeah, thank you! I knew it, I knew you'd- Oh, thank you, Sunny! I knew you guys were gonna love it, you know? I knew it.

-

Tubbo: I swear to God- I swear to God- We need to add homophobia to the QSMP, I swear to God- I swear to God-

-

Tubbo: Guys, I have to do everything in my power to break them up. What do you mean "no"?! This is awful, Sunny! This is awful!

Sunny: But why Pa?

Tubbo: THEY WERE NEVER MEANT TO GET TOGETHER! The stars told me so! They were never meant to actually get together!

Sunny: WHY PA

Tubbo: It's just wrong, Sunny! It's just wrong! I dunno how to explain it to you. It's just wrong!

Sunny: But it's loveeeee

Tubbo: ...If that's what you want to call it.

-

Tubbo: HOW IS THERE GONNA BE ENOUGH SPACE BETWEEN THEM FOR ME NOW, SUNNY?!

Sunny: You're telling me you've never been in love Pa?

Tubbo: Listen, it's just not right.

Sunny: But I like bodyguard Fit and driver Pac :(

Tubbo: I like them too! They're my best friends! But they can't be together.

Sunny: I think you are projecting

Tubbo: PROJECTING WHAT? HUH!?

Sunny: I will find you someone, Pa.

Tubbo: I DON'T WANT SOMEONE! I DON'T WANT SOMEONE IT ONLY SERVES TO DISAPPOINT ME AND GET MY HOPES UP AND LEAVE ME- LEAVE ME NOTHING BUT A SHELL! A SHELL OF A MAN!

-

Tubbo: Sunny - They're gonna hurt each other, Sunny- they're gonna hurt each other! And how will there be enough space between them for me now?

Sunny: Why would they do that if they care for each other?

Tubbo: People that care about each other, Sunny, hurt each other all the time! ALL THE TIME!

Sunny: But I care about you, and I don't hurt you.

Tubbo: No, that's different! That's different! The love that we have for each other is unconditional. Ok?

Sunny: Pa, I think you're just scared.

Tubbo: I'm not scared, I'm logical. All flags look red when you're wearing rose-tinted glasses.

-

Tubbo: [In response to Sunny talking about Aypierre's agreement to build her a statue] You already have a statue! [Sunny hits him] Ow!

Tubbo: What about the one Fit and Ramon made you for your birthday? [Tubbo has an idea] See? Do you think Fit would have time to do stuff like that if he's too- if he's too preoccupied with his little shag buddy? I don't think so! I don't think so!

Sunny: Wait.

Tubbo: See? You see what I'm saying? You see what I'm saying!

Sunny: You have a good point now

Tubbo: See? You under- yes, exactly! We HAVE to break them up! They can still be friends! Fck it, friends with benefits! But they cannot be together. We cannot let them.

Sunny: OK I'M IN

Tubbo: [Claps] I KNEW I COULD COUNT ON YOU! I knew I could count on you!

-

[Looking at fanart of Pac, Fit, and himself]

Tubbo: We- we have to split them up. We have to fckin' split them up. Oh, but I'm in this one! Oh, that's so-[Realizes it's him crying as a third-wheel] SEE?! SEE?! THEY KNEW! THEY KNEW! THEY FCKIN' KNEW! THEY FCKIN' KNEW!

-

Tubbo: [In a thick "red-blooded American" accent] Wha- I just don't understand why they have 'ta keep shoving it down our throats! Goddamnit! I JUST WISH IT WASN'T MY SMP! [He hits his desk and laughs]

-

Dono: Streamer becomes homophobic 'cause he can't get any

Tubbo:

Tubbo: Sunny, I'm just gonna need to brb for a moment.

Tubbo: [Stands up from his desk, walks away, and screams]

-

Tubbo: I swear to God, Chat - I promise you - if it's the last thing I do, I am going to break up Fit and Pac.

[lucky-clover-gazette]

so i know the amandafiles sneasler rant went pretty viral on here, but the real highlights of her pokemon legends arceus playthrough were her unhinged volo-related rants. this one is probably my favorite but there were many and i will absolutely clip and transcribe (not by hand i'm not that insane) more of them if asked

transcript under the cut:

Yeah. So, um, I'm just kind of leaving the scene of the crime now. And hopefully Adaman is still interested. That's all I have to say. Yeah, that's my statement at this time. Thank you. Thank you! Yeah, mhm. Bye.

Like, what. Is Volo gonna fucking pop out at me from the shadows over here? Is anybody around to talk to me? Like, about what just happened?

(Sees Melli.) Not what I meant, but um, you know what? Fuck it, Melli, guess what just happened. So, you know that guy Volo? Basically, like, we were talking, right? It was actually going pretty well. You know, just like this nerd, and he was like, so cute and so, like, excited about history and stuff, and, like, I was really feeling that, you know, and I dunno, he was, like, my champion. He was there for me when no one else was. He, like, picked me up off the ground at my lowest point. He was always cheering me on. He was always, like, hyping me up to other people. Wouldn't that be awesome, Mellie, if like someone ever did that for you? Not that that would ever happen, of course, but, like, can you imagine, like, someone being out there being like, "yes, like, that's the one, like, that's my girl. She's been doing it like, she's working so hard." That was Volo for me.

Melli, imagine my surprise when I go up to the mountain there because—we did this whole thing. Basically, I'm an important person. You wouldn't really understand. I, like, collected all these artifacts. I thought we were going to, like, do this thing that was important to, like, the history of the world.

But turns out Volo was fucking insane. And, like, no, I truly mean that, like crazy and saying he was like, a totally different person. He had been cosplaying as a normie the entire time. He's really a serial killer, I think. He's like a lunatic, right? Like, a cringey one. He did his hair. So he, like, is obsessed with Arceus. Right. The god pokémon. And Arceus, like—have you ever seen a picture of him? I'll pull it up on my Arc Phone real quick. He's got these, like, horns that come back and stuff. Bitch, he did his HAIR like this. AHH! I know. I got, like, a little picture of it. Look at him! An entire bottle of American Crew.

He, like, totally thought he ate that, but, like, he didn't. It looked so bad, but, like, that was the least of it. He was—his eyes got crazy. He was wearing, like, bright green capris and gladiator sandals. AHH! Melli, I know. it was fucked up. You know, it's like how quickly they change when you find out, like, what they really were after and what they really want. It was stunning. Startling, Melli, it's really like—have you ever had, like, an experience like that before with a guy? Probably not, since you're so insufferable and, like, you probably have never had anyone show interest in you before, platonically or otherwise, but maybe, like, read a book or something where that happened. That happened to me. That happened to me today.

I really had a huge crush on this guy. Like, to the point where I thought he was the one, Melli, I really did. I was like, ready to leave this whole place with him. Travel the world, and I won't lie to you, um… if he had been like, "Hey, you want to be crazy together? You want to be crazy with me?" I might have done it. I might have also tried that lifestyle out for a minute. I would have tried, like, the villain arc thing out… but lucky for you, it didn't work out. Otherwise, you would have been right on the top of my list. But anyway, yeah, I ended up, like, totally embarrassing him. We did a pokémon battle and he just fucking violently lost.

And then he teamed up with, like, the satan pokémon? It was weird. And they tried their little thing. It was cute. It was very cute. You know, I have to give it—it was camp, It was cute, it was like rehearsed. There was some choreography. It was cute, but obviously they lost horribly. But anyway, yeah, that's, uh. That's how my Tuesday's going. And I'm going to stop you there, Melli, because I really don't care. This wasn't an open invitation for you to talk. I just wanted to let someone know what had just happened.

[writing-with-moss]

Saw your post, and thought: why not?

Ok ok, imagine reader is a sleeper, and they like to sleep in most mornings. But one day they decided to wake up in the devil hours of the day and bake apple pie, waking up the 141 and they're generally concerned about reader's sleep schedule and health lmao.

If you understand what I mean.

thank you anon! I really appreciate the ask. My inbox had been really funky these last few days so I'm sorry it took so long!

Poly!TF141 x F!reader

TW/CW- mentions of anxiety and pregnancy, reader wears glasses and is called American, but nothing more than pure fluff!

It was dark when your eyes fluttered open. The warmth of the bed almost pulls you back to sleep. But you manage to get your eyes to stop drooping, your body lazily rolling over and glancing up at the clock.

3:20 a.m

You groan, might as well get up and start the day. So you sit up and swing yourself off the warm covers, leaving your comfy safehaven to maneuver through the dark room. Your hip brushes against a bookshelf and your hands enclose around your pair of glasses.

Finally able to see, you stumble into the kitchen, stretching out with a hum of pleasure, shivers running your spine. The gentle lamp light of the kitchen and the rumble in your stomach kept your socked feet moving along.

You settle on a book, wide open to a certain page. Apple Pie. Warm saliva filled your mouth at the thought of what you had been craving for weeks now. It had been so intense your boyfriends thought you might've been pregnant.

You open up the cupboards and drag out a few bowls, cutting up a few apples.

You must've been too loud because you were halfway into pouring the filling when a large form fills the doorway.

"Wha' da 'ell ya doin' Bonnie?" A sleepy Scottish man grumbles, stumbling towards you in just his boxers. "Cant feckin' sleep with so much bloody ruckus-"

He pauses at your baking, raising a brow. You turn and give a weak smile. "Sorry....Didn't mean to."

"Wha' da 'ell are you makin'?" A rougher voice came from the doorway, a man in matching black sweats stood behind Soap, tilting his head to watch you work.

"Apple Pie." You curtly answered, smiling as you hummed along, popping the dish into the oven.

"Yer so feckin' American." Soap wraps his arms warmly around your waist as he pecks a few kisses to your jaw. His stubble brushing against your cheek, causing a giggle to bubble in your chest. Ghosts warm hand landing on the back of your head to scratch at your scalp before gently tugging at Soaps Mohawk.

Johnny sticks his tongue out at him, before smiling. Ghost responding roughly. "Yer hair makes ya look like a fecking rooster."

Before he could reply, another man walked in.

"American apple pie huh?" Price came in with an almost concerned expression, pouring a mug of steaming coffee. "Yer up early baby. Somethin' goin' on?"

You shake your head. "Don't think so. Just had some cravings and got up early." Soap buries his head a bit deeper into your shoulder as he chuckles.

"You sure you ain't pregnant?" You elbow his side and he laughs, pulling back with a grin. Hopping onto the counter.

"I am not!" Ghost side eyes you and you huff, laughing. "Trust me, I would know. I already took a test. I. Am. Not. Pregnant."

"What about pregnancy- Oh is that apple pie?" Gaz suddenly pops into the kitchen, scratching his chin. "You okay babe? You're up really early."

"Yeah, I just woke up weirdly early. I dunno."

Price tilts his head, wrapping his arm around Gaz' shoulder as they cuddle up. "You anxious?"

"Maybe? I think I'll be okay." You respond, sighing as you cross your arms over your chest. Ghost gently pulls you a bit closer, enveloping you in warmth.

"We're always here for ya. Our sweet girl." He pecks a firm kiss to your forehead and they all nod.

Soap grins slightly. "But are you sure you aren't?-" You throw your towel at him before he can finish.

(Hopefully this is good enough! Thanks for the ask Anon! Requests are open!)

[jocelynscrazyideas]

I think of you, always || Quinn Hughes x Fem!Reader

inspired by the song affection by cigarettes after sex

Summary: After bit being able to tell the family if your bf, you meet his ex at a Christmas dinner. Getting jealous is super easy after hearing her get called pretty, you finish dinner and storm off.

Warnings: NOT PROOF READ!!! Smut, unprotected, language, harsh words towards someone.

『 °*• ❀ •*°』『 °*• ❀ •*°』 『 °*• ❀ •*°』

Meeting the family is difficult, meeting the friends is awkward. Have you thought about meeting the family when you’ve broken up a million thousand times?

Or worse, maybe the thought of being a very close family friend that is now dating one of three brothers, and now you have to “meet the family.”

Sounds easy, but once you realize the family wanted you to end up with the other brother, maybe it’s different.

Ellen and Jim, the Hughes parents, have always seen me with Luke, even Trevor. Trevor zegras is one of Jack’s hot friends that I can’t call hot. I’m 22. Fairly young. It’s forbidden to date older men, especially people the Hughes know.

The only reason why I have been chosen to have a future with the younger brother is because I’ve hung out with him more. I’ve always seen Quinn as another parent. He’s always watching out for me, he’s like another source of parenting. I didn’t hangout with him very much, until he had gotten into Michigan.

I graduated years earlier than I should have. My parents were moving to somewhere in Europe, but they were going to travel the world before they settled into the new home. So in order for me to move with them, I went homeschooled.

I got into Michigan, and I only applied to American schools, because being in Switzerland, and traveling to Monaco back in forth wasn’t fun.

Europe was only cool until my parents got a divorce. My dad also was moving to Italy after selling his home in Switzerland. Which kind of made me excited to see him. Italy is the place the Hughes spend some summers in.

~

The Hughes have been to my Monaco and newly Italian home several times. They love it there, but I get tired of it. My French is terrible, but Jack always tells me that I have an accent when I talk now because I’ve spent over half of my life in Europe. Apparently, I have a thick accent. Most of it is Italian, and a quarter of it is French, the rest is terrible English. “Say something in Spanish.” Luke mocks me.

For some reason they don’t believe me when I say I can speak four languages, “I told you, I speak French, Spanish, German, and Italian.” I roll my eyes and place the mashed potatoes onto the well decorated table.

Quinn touched my wrist, he sees that I have his very expensive watch on. I push my legging hugged ass back into his hips, he pushes back into me until Jim walks into the kitchen.

It’s an amazing Christmas break, the Devils have Christmas break at the same time as The Canucks, so everyone decided to come to Michigan and celebrate. Luke and I went down to Target to grab some cranberries for Ellen.

“I dunno why she always makes these, you hate them!” Luke laughs. He purchased the cranberry jar and stuffs it into a bag. I laugh and run my fingers through my cold brittle snowflake filled hair. “She likes them, she’s the cook, I don’t need to ask questions about her highness Hughes.” I bow and joked.

The thing about Luke, is he’s always laughing, he always understands me. Maybe that’s why Jim and Ellen love him for me? I’m not sure but I’m basically like their daughter. Somehow the boys were never my “brothers.”

I moved into their house for a year in Toronto because of my parents divorce. Jack was always at hockey, Luke never left my side and Quinn never hung out with me.

As soon as we got to the house I jumped out, and ran inside. I had the bag in my hand, Jack’s stupid shoes were sitting in the middle of the entry way.

I slipped and fell. I got up right away. The cranberries had spilled all over me from the jar. Glass crushed my hand. I don’t feel the pain, but as soon as Ellen comes rushing over from the kitchen I feel sharp tense pain in my wrist, and ass.

Luke runs in after me as he locks the car. He holds me up. He goes to grab the bandage kit they store in a closet. Ellen goes to grab the broom, and Quinn runs over to me to clean me up. Jim and Jack run out to get more cranberry jars for tonight’s big dinner.

I don’t question to holding onto Q for support, he brings me upstairs to his room. He sits me onto his bathroom counter and I feel my now bruised ass press agisnt the cold counter top.

Luke left us some bandages for Quinn to use on me. Luke left to go help his mother clean. Quinn and I are left alone.

~

It’s been 2 months of Quinn and I’s relationship. We haven’t told anybody, but it’s Halloween and I wnat a couple costume. Obviously I want to post the costumes for this year, so I’m left to wear something by myself.

~

Quinn kissed my cold cheek leaving a warm impression on my flushed face. He wraps my hand in pink bandage, and he helps me take my shoes and leggings off. Quinn changes me into some of his sweatpants, and a large shirt he has.

“Do you what them to know?” I ask.

Quinn pulled me into a warm hug. “Not yet, I’m not sure if my dad would be happy I’m the one you chose.” He rested his chin on top of my head.

“Well they will know because I have your clothes on, and they reek of your strong cologne.” I laugh. He holds my head as if i have a terrible headache.

He kissed my lips and carried me out of his personal bathroom. I walk to my room, and change into this gorgeous red dress, nice and lacy. I grab an ugly sweater and pull it over my head. Quinn changed into fancy- casual clothing to match my outfit.

We walk downstairs into a beautiful dining room, with a large Christmas tree that hangs fabulous ornaments that hold pictures of our childhood pictures. I notice that Ellen has labeled our sitting spots at the table.

I’m next to Jack, Luke next to my left, and quinn across from me. Ellen faces Jack, while Jim is sitting at the head, and the table is pressed up to the wall. So no one is sitting at the opposite side of Jim. There is an empty seat, I thought it was weird- Ellen never has an empty chair for family gatherings.

We stay eating, we pass peas, toast, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cheese on a stick. Then we hear the door bell ring.

I thought, “Christmas carolers.”

no

“Mom?” Quinn gets up quickly. Ellen has been outside for a few minutes. She finally comes in. She grunts in frustration.”hey Quinn.” One of many the pretty girls Quinn has had a relationship with says. She walks up to him, hugs him and sets her bags down.

“You can sit here, and I’ll take Quinn’s seat.” Ellen nods,

“Mom! You knew about this?” Quinn drags her over to the Christmas tree. He lowered his voice.

Am I nervous that Quinn’s ex-girlfriend is here- while we just kissed upstairs, and to mention… He’s my boyfriend.

yes. Yes I’m petrified.

“Of course I did Quinn. She loves you still. I’m your mother. Switch seats with me.” Ellen walks him back to the table, straightening his ugly sweater on him.

“No. I like where I am.” Quinn sits down at his original seat. He places his foot on mine, letting me know he’s with me.

“Pretty.” I mouth to Quinn. He nods his head in agreement. He winks at me and he starts playing footsie with me. My dress folds right at the cut of my hip and thighs. Very short dress for a winter party.

Classical winter music continues over our dinner. Jim laughs at everything Jack says, Luke looks at me when I eat. I look at Luke when he eats. It’s just as if we’re still little and we fling Mac and cheese at eachother.

“Grub bub.” Luke laughs while drinking his apple cider. I laugh so hard I snort, Quinn starts laughing at me. Jack holds me in and sways me around. Yep, he’s drunk.

Ellen noticed the few glances Quinn and I make.

~

“Why don’t you help me clean up?” Jim waves Ellen up. We dismiss ourselves and we go back to our rooms. Quinn, well he takes his ex’s bags up to the guest room.

While they walk up here, “oh. I love that room, may I stay in it?” She walks into my room, and lays on the bed. “Comfy!” She giggles. I walk out if my closet, I suck my teeth this selfish bitch is in my bed.

“what. the. fuck.” I laugh in a rude manner. I see Quinn astonished, his mouth open. And so were her legs.

I push quinn out. I yell in his face, “get her up, or I’ll handle it myself.”

You could say I get jealous, but why did he seemed to enjoy it?

Ellen came running upstairs, “oh my!” Ellen grabs the girl out from her arm. She takes her bags and leads her to the basement guest room.

I was angry, I walking away. I had on a lacy black thong, and a navy blue spaghetti strap tank top, and some white sweat shorts on. The thong sits on my hips, and the shorts sit right on my pelvis bone. Most of my underwear was out. I ddint give a fuck. I had no bra on- “wow” Jack says while he walks his way to his own room.

“Nice one” Jack laughs at Quinn. Quinn watches me sit down in the living room couch, I turn the TV on. He comes running down to sit with me.

“Baby, come on. What was I supposed to do?” He whines.

I roll my eyes, “uh, I’m not sure- not let her walk into a room?! Im even more mad by the fact she had her legs spread open for you, and her boobs- Her Boobs! They were just out, it wasn’t her underboob or sideboob- I saw nips.” I yell out in frustration.

I get up and slide slippers on.

I get my keys and run out the door. I go for a drive, “wait no!” Quinn runs after me. I have slammed the door on his face.

~

After awhile- no phone, no internet, no way to find me, Quinn pulls his car right up next to me. Jack sits passenger. “What the hell?!” Quinn knocks on my window.

“Oh goodness! Thought you were a murderire!” I gasp.

“No. You don’t get to do that.” He yells- flailing his arms around. I see his breathe in the air. Quinn knocks on the door.

I roll down the window. Quinn bends down to see me. He kissed my face.

“I told Jack about us. Luke is pampering my “ psychotic bitchy ex” and my mom is waiting for us with hot chocolate.”

“What about-“

“Dad? Yeah no he’s gone. He’s sleeping away from his drunkness. And Jack can drive home because I sobered him up with the news about us.” Quinn rushes over the empty parking lot towards to Jack.

“Go. I’ll talk her back home.” Quinn whispered and nods his head at me. Jack crawls to the driver seat.

“You know her well Quinn! The only way to get back home is to hit 3rd base!” Jack yells out the window while pulling away. Quinn sits in the passenger seat of my car.

We’re alone in a parking lot inside a freezing car because my heater broke, and it’s the middle of winter with tons of axe murderres.

“He’s not wrong.” I look at Quinn.

Quinn mumbles, “mhm. I know.” He slides his hand onto my thigh.

I crawl to the backseat. My back hits the cold interior of the car. Quinn climbs ontop of me. He slides my tank top up, seeing my bare hard niopples. “Oh baby.” Quinn starts sucking on one. He slides a hand into my shorts.

I feel his warm but very cold hand touch my sensitive bud. He starts rubbing into my clit, he moans while he sticks one finger into my hole. He came up from my chest- he starts aggressively kissing me.

My tounge hitting his throat, his cum covered finger slides into my mouth. I suck onto my pussy juiced cover finger and Quinn unbuttons his dress pants. I feel his hard groin hit my bare torso. He’s hard- for me.

“Quinn-“ he holds my hands up with one of his own hand. He pulls off my shorts, he sees my new thong. “Impressive.” He moans. I sit up against the door. The windows are white, but not from the frost- but from our hard breathing.

Quinn stuffs his face into my pussy as if he’s still hungry from dinner. I start to cum, but Quinn pulls away from me. He holds my hand as I start rubbing myself. With his other hand, Quinn jerks iff to start some lubricant.

He starts rocking his hips into mine. I feel his cold tip touch what feels like my lungs. He holds my legs up. I know the car is rocking a ton. But I love it.

~

Quinn slaps my ass while I’m in doggy style. He fucks me hard, and he gets tired after a good 47 minutes.

~

I hope I get to finish him. I start sucking off his cum and playing with his sensitive balls. He leans his head back, letting me crawl up onto his chest. His phone rings.

“Hey dad? Whats wrong?”

“Where are you? Is y/n coming back?” Jim yells through the phone. I can hear the worry in his voice.

“Dad. Y/n. She’s fine.” I cut him off by kissing him. I turn our camera on and see Jim. Ellen is in the corner of the camera and screams. She jumps up and down.

“I knew you’d end up with one of my boys!” She smiled. She runs up to Jack and he twirls her around. Luke winks at us through the camera.

~

Quinn cuddles me in bed and warms my back up. I feel his warmth and love, I wish we announced our relationship before the dinner.

[weaselandfriends]

The Making Of: When I Win the World Ends

(For my previous Making Of post, see The Making Of: Cleveland Quixotic.)

I. 1999

It was the year of the cubicle movie. It was the year of Fight Club, of Office Space, of Being John Malkovich, of Three Kings, of The Matrix, and of American Beauty. It was the year of suburban malaise, of eternal sunshine, of ceaseless normality. A year of United States hegemony; a year whose chief terror was that THIS WAS IT.

Before the millennium turned and the towers fell, there was an initial challenge to this order, a completely inconsequential one made consequential by a newly minted 24/7 news media machine running out of noise to fill dead air now that people were sick to bursting of the Clinton impeachment. This challenge came not through war, revolution, or violence, but through entertainment. Children's entertainment.

And I was a child. Unaware of any cultural context, I knew only one thing: I loved Pokémon. I really, really loved Pokémon.

I owned Red Version, Blue Version, Yellow Version, Pokémon Pinball, Pokémon Stadium, Pokémon Snap, Hey You Pikachu, a Pokémon Tetris sort of puzzle game, even the Pokémon TCG game for Gameboy. I had ten to fifteen strategy guides for the games, an encyclopedia of the 151 Pokémon, a choose your own adventure book, an I Spy-style book. I had Pokémon figurines, Pokémon plushies, toy Poké Balls, toy Pokédexes. I had Pokémon stamps and Pokémon stickers and a deck of Pokémon cards. Not trading cards, just a standard 52-card deck with Pokémon pictures on it. Of course I also had the trading cards. A complete set of the first three runs, plus a special Mew card you could get from I dunno Toys R Us or something as part of some promotion. I had a guide for the card game that explained which cards were good or bad even though I didn't even play the card game. I had a Pokémon Tamagotchi and Pokémon pencils and Pokémon erasers and Ash Ketchum's hat and I dressed up as Ash Ketchum for Halloween. Of course I watched every episode of the anime, and in notebooks I drew doodles of existing Pokémon and came up with names for new Pokémon. My father had died that year.

My father was a sports fanatic. Traditional sports. He, too, collected. Sports memorabilia, baseball cards, figures of famous stars. When I was an infant, he drove me on a cross country road trip to Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where I became a part owner of the Green Bay Packers. He had always wanted me to grow up and pursue professional sports. When I was born, the doctor apparently said to start looking for football colleges, a quote he saved in a scrapbook of baby photos. He had played sports himself, in college; he was a baseball catcher, until a hitter accidentally struck him in the head with a full force swing.

Almost everything I personally remember about him involves him dying. He was sick for a long time, and I remember hospitals and hospital beds and strange smells and gauze. And then one day my mother told me he died.

He was a charismatic man, very social and very popular. He had many friends and a lot of family, all of whom had constantly been around our house. Once he was gone, they stopped coming around. Then it was just me and my mother, who was not a fanatic for anything, except maybe her job as an elementary school teacher, which consumed her time as she assiduously prepared lesson plans and graded tests until late at night. When my father died, she got into some argument with his side of the family, the details of which I still don't fully understand, and afterward they no longer spoke. Her own family lived far away, out-of-state, seen only at Christmas. The house became quiet.

And I… played… Pokémon.

II. The Electric Tale of Pikachu

Toshihiro Ono was a mangaka primarily known for shotacon and futanari hentai. His credits such as Innyou Megami and Anal Justice made him a no-brainer pick for the officially licensed Pokémon manga, Electric Tale of Pikachu, as it too would feature a 10-year-old boy as the protagonist.

This manga would be the foundation for my conception of what Pokémon was, narratively. Though I also had the Pokémon Adventures manga that ran concurrently and which has by now long outlasted it, Electric Tale left a significantly deeper imprint on my memory.

In summary, Electric Tale is a retelling of the first two seasons of the anime. Ash Ketchum is the main character, he's accompanied by Misty and later Brock, his rival is Gary, and Team Rocket harangues him.

What sets Electric Tale apart is its tone, which is far more adult than Adventures and the anime. Obviously, part of this comes from the author's primary area of expertise being hentai. Even in the censored English version, there is a sense of sexual playfulness in how every single female character is an older woman who likes to tease Ash about his romantic interests.

But there are other elements that creep in unrelated to sex, due to the perspective of someone only used to speaking to adults who suddenly has to speak to children. Ono doesn't really get the childish fantasy of leaving at 10 being normal in society, so he introduces an element where Ash can only get a one year deferment from school and will have to return unless he hits it big. Team Rocket are former competitive hopefuls who flamed out and then, with no education or work experience to speak of, had no choice but to turn to crime. The Pokémon are depicted more realistically, often eschewing the toyetic mascot elements of their designs.

And the landscapes are often wistful, even apocalyptic in their presentation:

This more sedate, mature, realistic depiction of Pokémon became what I wanted Pokémon to be, what I projected onto an original Red and Blue version that left everything open to interpretation, and what would increasingly frustrate me with the series as it deviated more toward bombastic villain groups with goofy destroy-the-world plots. (Which was what put me off Pokémon Adventures.)

Amid all this, one panel stuck with me in particular. One panel I would think about ever since I first saw it as a child, that would turn around in my head and keep coming back. That panel would eventually—over two decades later—become the basis for When I Win the World Ends, the seed from which an entire story grew:

III. The Unkillable Demon King

But in the interim, the seed remained dormant. 1999 fell away. I grew up. I played later Pokémon games and increasingly lost interest by around Gen 4 and 5. Then I went to college.

That's when I started playing League of Legends.

I was something of a psychopath in college. I operated on a strict schedule and did not deviate. Wake up, read 50 pages of classic literature, write 2,000 words, go to classes, study, and then by about four in the afternoon all my obligations were done and it was League of Legends until midnight.

I wasn't actually interested in the League of Legends esports scene in its infancy. In 2012, I was actually invited to attend its World Championship in Los Angeles and refused. (When I received this invitation, I had just finished reading Homestuck for the first time, and was caught in a month-long haze in which I could do little but bask within what I considered the greatest artistic achievement I'd seen in my life. It was this month that inspired Modern Cannibals.) I only liked playing the game and watching Dunkey videos.

It wasn't until the next year, when a girl I was interested in recommended I watch, that I tuned in to my first professional League of Legends game, at the 2013 World Championship. It was there that I got to watch this new, hyped, upcoming Korean player who had apparently taken the pro scene by storm that season. That player was Faker.

It has seemingly become essential to the narrative of any sport that there is "the man who always wins." American football has Tom Brady, and the moment Brady retired, he was replaced by Patrick Mahomes. Basketball has LeBron James, picking up the mantle from Michael Jordan. It's as if someone being "the best" validates the skill-based promise of the sport, the fundamental top-down fairness of its premise, the idea that the person who wins is the best and deserved it. Faker would become the backbone of League of Legends esports and his ascendance correlated to that of the sport itself, from its humble roots at small-scale tournaments in places like Jönköping, Sweden, to max capacity arenas in the biggest cities in the world.

It's surprising, though, how the legend of Faker had already begun even before he won his first World Championship. League of Legends was designed as a clone of Defense of the Ancients (DotA), a popular mod for Warcraft III that emphasized competitive play. In its infancy, the competitive scene was mostly dominated by players who had migrated from DotA to League. They were older, winning thanks to a fundamental conceptual understanding of the game that was superior to everyone else, and frankly not very good in the aggregate. As League of Legends esports exploded in popularity from 2013 to 2015, these old pros would get filtered out swiftly, with even the biggest and most popular names retiring after only a couple of years in the scene.

Even once the new generation of League-grown talent ascended, though, careers were nasty, brutish, and short. The best players only remained on top for a season, as game patches dramatically changed viable strategies. Internationally the sport was dominated by Koreans, with the Korean regional league sometimes being seen as more difficult to win than the World Championship, where Koreans often breezed through uncompetitive Chinese, European, and North American squads.

This possibly affected the demographics of the professional scene. South Korea has mandatory military service, and leaving the pro scene to join the military was basically the end of a Korean player's career. This meant that it was rare to see a Korean player older than 25. Retiring in your early 20s was and remains common. Korean organizations, which had an infrastructural leg up on other regions due to the popularity of StarCraft 2 esports in the country, became adept at scouting promising players at 15 or 16, building them into top level competitive pros, wringing them dry for a few seasons with brutal training regimens, and spitting them out.

Faker was the exception. Though he had been discovered young by SK Telecom, a major Korean telecommunications company that did esports on the side, and gone through the training regimen, he refused to be spit out. He simply didn't stop. He won in 2013, then with a completely new four-man squad around him won again in 2015 and 2016 before narrowly losing the 2017 finals in a nail biter. Given League of Legends esports had only existed since 2011, he basically accounted for half of the championships up until that point. Nobody else, except for his teammates, had won more than once. And it was like it was known he would be this juggernaut the instant he manifested ex nihilo. Like it was known, even in 2013, that he would always win.

Then, Faker stopped winning.

By 2017, League of Legends esports was a titan. Venture capital firms, seeing the millions of eyeballs, thought that this was the next NBA in its infancy, and decided to get in on the ground floor. Multiple millions of dollars were pumped into the scene as even mediocre players in weak regions like North America pulled seven-digit salaries. In China, where League of Legends had become the national pastime, the nation's richest oligarchs ran teams for fun and vanity, outbidding Korean organizations for top Korean players in pursuit of a trophy that had gone to Korea every year since 2013. Riot, the studio developing the game, pumped tons of money into creating a professional sports product, with skilled announcers, dedicated arenas for regional leagues, live performances by musicians like Imagine Dragons and Lil Nas X, and all the other bells and whistles one might expect from a program watched on ESPN.

In this milieu, it seemed like Faker had finally reached his limit. He was still good, but not the best. Even as an individual, while everyone still considered him the "greatest of all time," he was considered outmatched by newer pros like Chovy and ShowMaker. 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 passed with no championships. In 2022, on a team of mostly rookies, he reached the world finals, but was ultimately beaten. Korea's stranglehold over the sport had been shaken by China, which had finally strung together some championships. People wondered if Faker would retire, although he had managed to avoid mandatory military service by representing Korea in the Olympics-esque Asian Games. He'd dealt with wrist injuries and his level of play dropped year over year. He just didn't seem to be that good anymore, potentially holding back his team of talented young players rather than leading them to victory.

Then, in 2023—

And in 2024—

In the end, never count out Touchdown Tom. 11 years of professional play, 5 world championships.

From this longwinded explanation, you might have realized that after watching that game in 2013, I became a League of Legends esports fanatic, fulfilling the prophecy set before me by my father though perhaps in not the way he would have expected.

And the things I become a fanatic about, I want to write a story about.

IV. Modern Cannibals

There's a deleted scene in Modern Cannibals, as Maximillion is driving Z. and her friends through the Utah desert. He starts to talk about Pokémon.

"I bring it up because my university thesis was about Pokemon in particular how Pokemon has basically trained an entire generation of children to think in a completely different way than preceding generations my generation for instance our fad was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles now I don't know how much you know about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but from an educational standpoint we're talking absolute bankrupt complete and utter goose egg but Pokemon now Pokemon you see it's more like there's some substance to it you know that refrain Gotta Catch Em All right?" "..." "Well to most parents it looks like a marketing gimmick you make one hundred fifty-one characters and structure a game around collecting them the merchandising potential is astronomical kids buy one hundred fifty-one trading cards stickers coloring books figurines uh collectable lunchable toys I'm sure you've got some yourself."

He continues:

"But really you look at the game itself before the big toy explosion the game itself the focus is placed less on the collection and more on the catalogue you're given a blank encyclopedia to fill and you fill it by capturing one hundred fifty-one Pokemon but the goal is to create a complete database of each and every one and this is what I argue is the educational core of the Pokemon series." His hands left the wheel to conceive of his idea in the cool air of the car, which remained steady on its ever-forward path. "Our modern era is no longer one of singular isolated knowledge it is one of the catalogue the database which is most clearly personified in the advent of the internet because now all knowledge can be at the fingertips of any one human being all that is needed is someone to go and put the catalogue together and presto whiz bang it's there think about it Z. when you catch a bunch of Pokemon where do you store them?" Z. didn't need to think long to remember the game's mechanics. "In the PC." "Exactly now isn't that odd consider it in real life terms you have real life creatures made assumedly of flesh and bone and yet you store them in a computer how does that make sense you'd expect a farm or a holding pen but no it's the computer and that too prepares the budding portion of the millennial generation to become cognizant of the linkage between the computer the encyclopedia and the database structure of knowledge in a new era." "So," said Z. "So you're saying Pokemon taught kids how to think in the digital age?"

There's also a deleted character in Modern Cannibals. Well, mostly deleted—he still shows up, unnamed, in a couple of pages. He is Cole Coulter, Z.'s older brother, a popular League of Legends streamer. Before I deleted him, his role was to accompany Mrs. Roddlevan and Frederick in an attempt to bring Z. back home. He had POV scenes that gave insight into the weirdness of his cotravelers, but ultimately, I decided he didn't add anything to the story and removed him almost entirely.

Even then, though, I was already considering the future of Cole Coulter as the protagonist of a story about League of Legends esports. Playing under the ID MadKing, he would be a North American professional top laner, once known for his aggressive duelist style but recently forced into playing boring tanks as the esports metagame became more sophisticated and tactics-based.

The story would be simple, something I envisioned as a "sports story" only about esports instead of regular sports. It would start with Cole's team being relegated from the league, only for Cole to get a last chance signing to a new team with two promising Korean imports. One import, the mid laner, would be a charismatic and eccentric player in the mold of Doinb/Ganked By Mom/Huhi, while the other, an AD carry, would be introverted and pissy and elitist, in the mold of Piglet. The team would initially struggle, cultures would clash, then a mid-season replacement to sign a psychopathic Tyler1/Tarzaned style streamer as jungler would revitalize the team, put them on a major run, and get them to the World Championship. Though they would eventually fall after a miracle run, Cole would get a moment to truly shine on the biggest stage when he won a pivotal game by aggressive split pushing rather than tank play.

Thematically, the story would be about two things. First, a counterpoint to the idea of American exceptionalism, featuring a league where Americans are particularly bad compared to Korean or Chinese players. Second, an exploration of what it means to be exceptional at all. Cole would be an all-around mediocre person. Middling at school, at (real) sports, at the various popularity contests of being a teenager. League of Legends, this niche sub-sport, is the one thing he truly excelled at, the one place where he was good, better than 99.9 percent of all players, and yet even within that statistical greatness he wound up, ultimately, in a professional scene where he was once again mediocre, relegated to "tank duty," to facilitating other players to carry.

What does it mean to be the best? How can someone be so, so good, only to reach a level where they were still nothing special? Is there any way to win if you're not "the man who always wins"?

I remembered that panel from Electric Tale of Pikachu. The last people filtered before the final champion. It's certainly no walk in the zoo!

This idea was pretty detailed for a story I never wound up writing, something I mostly blame on the years 2018 and 2019, when a lot of bad things happened to me and in retrospect I consider it a minor miracle I managed to finish Chicago at all. As a human being, I would be decimated for the next three years, and so a lot of stories I might have written in that time never came to fruition.

Meanwhile, League of Legends esports reached a peak, then the venture capital bubble burst as investors realized there was no monetization scheme in place for any interested party except Riot Games. Money hemorrhaged out, Riot shifted resources to Valorant, and a sport that had been overinflated based on projected exponential growth in perpetuity fell back down to earth.

Also, Players came out.

Players was a 2022 mockumentary about a fictional League of Legends team competing in the North American league. Conceptually, it was doing a lot of what I had planned for my story: following a single team on a rags-to-riches run, focusing on the interpersonal drama of the team members, asking questions about greatness and its pursuit. It's a pretty good show if you're familiar with League of Legends esports at all, with a lot of on-the-ground fidelity that gives it an authentic feel, which is exactly what I had been hoping to use my esports fanaticism to accomplish. It completely took the wind out of my sails; it was like my idea had already been done.

So by 2022, the idea of a League of Legends esports story was dead. But there was still a drive to create something with that spirit, that would delve into those themes.

What remained after all these years of sifting the sieve, letting sand slip through, was that one panel from the manga. The number of people pursuing greatness slowly filtering until only one remained. And if I wasn't going to pursue that idea through League of Legends, maybe I could pursue it through another vehicle. Maybe the vehicle through which the idea had originally been exposed to me. Pokémon. It all came back to Pokémon.

V. Everything Evolving Into Crabs

I knew immediately that if I were to write a Pokémon fic, it would be a tournament arc. This was the natural evolution of my esports story idea. Also, if I were to write Pokémon, I wanted it to be a story about utopia, immersed within Pokémon's near-future ideal world, where everything is clean and healthy, where society is neat and ordered.

This idea caused me to remember the novel Eyeless in Gaza by Aldous Huxley, which I had read a few years back. A mostly autobiographical bildungsroman written on the precipice of World War II, the novel ends with the young protagonist on a journey to Central America, where he meets an idealistic doctor who believes sport to be a proper substitution for war. He tells the story of two tribes locked in internecine conflict through generations, able to replace that violence with soccer matches.

And wasn't that what the world of Pokémon was, a utopia revolving around neutralizing weapons of war by using them for competitive sport?

This tournament, I envisioned, would not simply be about deciding who was best, but an ideological battle for the future of the Pokémon world. To that end, I imagined a war between an entrenched trainer class, who competed as philosopher-warriors, intense individuals with deep connections to their Pokémon, and an upstart commercialization that sought to replace the ideological underpinnings that made their society so safe and prosperous with economic accumulation. It was from this kernel that the character who would become Aracely Sosa arose: charismatic, appealing, human-empathic, and propped up by a support staff who did all the hard work of teambuilding for her.

I imagined the story having an ensemble cast, focusing on nearly every competitor equally, with the Aracely character not having any especial focus until her improbable rise to the top. I imagined a final round where she faced off against "the man who always wins," and though she would lose to him, she would seem to have won the ideological battle, altering the course of society as major corporations scrambled to employ her formula for success at a much grander scale. The story would end with this realization of the earth-shattering importance behind her run, only for Aracely to sink in disappointment. Because in the end, all she really wanted was to win.

The more I thought about it, though, the less I liked the idea of an ensemble cast. The ensemble cast element of Chicago hadn't gone over very well (though I like it), and I figured it would wind up inflating the length of the story considerably. I was coming to the end of Cleveland Quixotic, after all, and once more wanted to write something smaller, tighter, and denser.

So I oriented my thinking to instead have the story revolve around Aracely and one major rival, to give an interpersonal mirror to the ideological war being waged. Thus, Toril came about as an antithesis to everything I had imagined Aracely to be: gruff, antisocial, independent. Their rivalry would culminate in a semifinals battle, before Aracely went on to fight "the man who always wins" in the finals.

I forget exactly when the gender theme came into the equation, but it evolved as an outgrowth of (once again) my competitive League of Legends expertise, where women are essentially nonexistent despite there seemingly being no biological blocks against them. This dovetailed nicely with Pokémon, a world where women seemingly could be powerful competitors, but where—in the anime at least—none ever are. For instance, look at this chart of every major tournament in the anime:

Every known winner is male. Every known finalist and semifinalist is male. Only a handful of female characters have reached the quarterfinals. What possible in-universe justification could there be for that?

This question was actually far more prominent in early planning and drafting than it wound up being in the final work. Initially, I had Aracely's personal motivation revolve around a drive to be the first female trainer to win; this would increase the ideological conflict between her and Toril, who attempted to ignore that she was female altogether. Over time, this theme would see diminished importance in face of the last piece of the thematic puzzle: cults.

It came from reading Underground by Haruki Murakami, a nonfiction journalistic account of the 1995 Tokyo sarin gas attacks carried out by the cult Aum Shinrikyo under the direction of its leader Shoko Asahara. Japan in the 90s was experiencing its own End of History, one taken literally by those disaffected with modern society's grand narrative. The prophecies of Nostradamus became fashionable among the young, who believed that 1999 would be the final year before the world was destroyed. Murakami interviewed both survivors of the gas attack and members of Aum Shinrikyo, collecting worldviews of people who simply thought they were "different" and who were willing to give everything in their lives to the one place that seemed to accept that difference.

The 1995 attacks were a watershed moment in Japanese culture. In their wake would come pivotal works of Japanese pop media, like the titan of otaku culture, Neon Genesis Evangelion:

(What's scary about Nostradamus' prophecy is that it might not come true. A year whose chief terror was that THIS WAS IT.)

Pokémon, whose first games released in Japan in 1996, also emerged within this post-Aum world where fixation on the minutiae of pop media was becoming a primary pillar of meaning for the youth, and it's hard not to see echoes of cultism in the evil teams that dot the series' landscape. Even Team Rocket, originally more modeled on organized crime than occultism, veers that direction in Gold and Silver, and afterward the organizations and their world-ending plots become increasingly absurd, to the point where it starts to become unclear why anyone would ever follow, say, Lysandre.

As I mentioned earlier, my personal interest in Pokémon was at odds with these clownish, Saturday morning cartoon villain organizations, but Murakami's account of the Aum attacks recontextualized them for me, made them make sense even within the framework of a "realistic" utopian world. The last elements snapped into place, and I knew my main character would be the member of one of these cults. A cult dedicated to, what else? Evolution. A core element of the Pokémon series, a perfect metaphor for the frustrating lack of movement of the End of History 90s. I imagined a cult leader as a surrogate mother figure for Aracely, who would have a strained relationship with both of her own parents, and deciding on that, the idea of making Pokémon's canon evil mother Lusamine the villain was a no-brainer. I imagined a post-SuMo Lusamine, unable to move on from her experience merged with Nihilego, languishing in Kanto after being sent there to consult with Bill, who had his own experience being merged with a Pokémon... It didn't take long to figure out how all these pieces connected.

The full form of the story had taken shape.

VI. Showdown

I knew immediately I would be following Showdown rules for the battles. No alternative even crossed my mind. I had dabbled in Showdown a few times over the years, first in Gen 3 OUs, then later in Gen 7 OUs, and I knew from experience that Pokémon is a monumentally more interesting competitive game when operating at a high level compared to either its depiction in the anime (shounen logic, mid-fight evolutions) or the general playing experience (spam your best move on your overleveled starter). I knew I would use competitive rulesets before I even considered the thematic or worldbuilding aspect I would eventually take in the story itself (i.e., that the specific rulesets prevent battles from becoming bloodsport and enforce order on the world). I simply thought doing battles this way would be far more entertaining.

To prepare, I started playing Gen 9 OUs under the guidance of a few friends who were into the competitive scene. I grinded the ladder for months, eventually getting a good enough grasp on the metagame to reach 1500 Elo on the Showdown ladder, which is not very good but generally higher than someone can reach with dumb luck.

Crafting the tournament format and rulesets used in the story wasn't difficult. I modeled the tournament format on the League of Legends World Championship, with region-based seeds (having been selected due to performance in regional tournaments) competing in four groups before the highest performers advanced to a single elimination bracket. Initially, I envisioned a 32-competitor bracket instead of the 16-competitor bracket that would appear in the final draft, but otherwise the format came quickly and easily.

In terms of the rulesets and available Pokémon, my considerations were made primarily in terms of what would be most entertaining to read. I decided to include Mega Evolutions and not include Z Moves, Dynamax, or Terastallization, because Mega Evolutions are cool and those other gimmicks are not. The bring-9-pick-6 format, while unusual in Showdown rulesets, is similar to the rules in Pokémon Stadium and VGC tournaments, and also adds a level of intrigue to which Pokémon each competitor uses. (It also enabled Red's Zapdos at the climax of the story, which was something I knew I would bring out from very early on.)

With the help of one of my friends who knew competitive Pokémon, I scripted out each battle assiduously before I wrote them. Every battle was tested using Showdown itself, with only a few turns mocked up to account for luck. For instance, in Aracely versus Jinjiao, Slowking is meant to stay asleep for three turns. Rather than rely on luck to ensure Slowking actually slept that long during the test, I could give Slowking a useless move and have him use that instead to simulate being asleep.

The only thing that couldn't be tested in Showdown was the 7 PP Kingambit trick Red uses at the end of the story, because it's impossible to set a Pokémon to have fewer than max PP in Showdown. This led to one of the bigger mistakes of the story, as it turns out that Encore would simply wear off if Kingambit ran out of PP, rather than forcing him to use Struggle like I assumed. Luckily, even if this were the case, it wouldn't change the outcome of the battle, so it's not an error I lose too much sleep over.

Character teams were chosen to thread the needle between a few considerations. The team needed to be competitively viable, reflect the character's personality in some way, and be distinct from other teams for the sake of variety. (Variety is somewhat unrealistic in real top-level competitive Pokémon, where you'll often see many almost identical teams in the top ranks. But that would be boring.) Some lack of optimization was allowed under the conceit that actually training these Pokémon to peak form would take a lot of time in the real world, compared to Showdown were optimization can be determined quickly due to the ability to immediately adjust stats and builds.

I also tried to give some preference for Pokémon that would be more familiar to layman fans, though this was difficult because Gen 8 and 9 have outrageous power creep and many popular early generation Pokémon have been completely phased out. (Using Megas helped with this issue.) It was this consideration that led to Azumarill being Aracely's ace. There was also an innate challenge to imagining what the competitive scene would look like without legendary Pokémon. Zapdos and Landorus-Therian have been inexorable staples of the competitive scene for generations. What happens in a world where they aren't used at all?

In the original 32-person bracket, I imagined Aracely competing against Jinjiao in the first round, then minor characters Adrian da Cunha and Jacq Ray Johnson in the next two rounds, before facing Toril in semifinals. I imagined Adrian da Cunha as a "hometown hero" whose team wasn't great but he was plucky with a lot of grit, and Jacq Ray Johnson as a self-aware heel who liked to use cheesy strategies and gimmicky Pokémon like Smeargle and Ditto. Condensing from 32 to 16 occurred around the same time I had settled on Lusamine as my villain/cult leader, which led to replacing those two with Gladion. I developed full brackets for both the 32-man and 16-man iterations, with character names and regions, just in case I ever needed to mention them.

All that was left to do was write the story.

VII. Unbroken Line of History

I began writing in September 2023 under the tentative title Unbroken Line of History, which I would later change to simply Lines. In the original drafts, I opened the story with a modified version of the panel from Electric Tale of Pikachu detailing how people are filtered over time in their pursuit of being the best, this time starting with all 8 billion people in the world until only one remains. The story then cut to Aracely's perspective in the restroom as she mentally prepared for her final group stage match.

At this point I was more set on Aracely being the clear protagonist of the story, so she had a few facets of her personality designed around that. First, as I mentioned before, there was a feminist angle where she was motivated specifically to be the first female trainer to win the championship. Secondly, I threw in some more generic nervousness/fear of failure. The other major difference is that I did not lead with the cult prophecy of the world ending. I originally envisioned the cult reveal to be a mid-story twist, and only obliquely hinted at it.

The scene still played out with Toril appearing and the two getting off to a bad start. Then, Cely's father tried to talk strategy with her while she ignored him, before the battle transpired in much the same form as it does in the final draft.

I showed this early draft to my friends and most disliked it. My girlfriend at the time told me Cely sounded like an edgy 13-year-old boy, while my neuroscientist friend whose aspirational idol is Bondrewd from Made in Abyss wanted to know more about the oblique hints of a cult, finding everything else boring. Another friend said it was stupid that there were 30 seconds between turns during the battle and that the Pokémon should just go at each other; nobody would actually want to watch a battle that was paced so slowly. (I vehemently disagreed with that take. Basically every popular sport balances between slow-paced moments of strategy and fast-paced moments of action and execution.) Some people I showed it to did enjoy it, though. Gazemaize, the author of Chili and the Chocolate Factory, was especially enamored by the Brittany/Gardevoir reveal and the Bud Light Analyst Desk, and implored me to keep both of those elements at all costs. 7th, one of my friends who helped me with the Showdown stuff, was so into it she drew fan art of all the characters (which I've posted before) and also wrote eight pornographic short stories about them.

I rewrote the same opening scene several times across October and November, though these were minor iterations without significant adjustments. Frustrated with the lack of progress, I decided to take a break from writing to simply think about the story for a few months.

During this time, to fix Aracely's edgy 13-year-old voice, I decided to lean into her being from Pokémon Los Angeles (with her native region, Visia, being a play on "visual" as a reference to Hollywood) and gave her a Valley Girl accent. To prepare for this, I listened to hours and hours of ASMR videos of people speaking like Valley Girls and took notes on their inflection and syntax. It was here where I decided on Aracely's underlining quirk, as a way of capturing the unique style of emphasis Valley Girls used.

This also made me realize I needed to adjust Aracely's personality. Despite the tone of her voice, she was still acting antisocially. She didn't want to talk to her father, she didn't want to talk to Lachlan Nguyen, she didn't even really want to talk to Toril. Toril herself was a lump of coal. My own misanthropy kept leaking into the characters, even when I conceptually didn't want them to have it. I thought back to Cleveland Quixotic, and how what made the Jay and Viviendre romance work was that they actually both liked each other, and figured—even though I didn't have explicitly romantic plans for Aracely and Toril—that I needed to do something similar to make their rivalry truly pop. Rather than avoid people, Aracely would lean into talking to them, even if they were annoying. Although Toril remained frigid, there would be a part of her yearning for emotional contact, a way to coax her out of her shell.

I also thought deeply about the structure of my stories in general, and my inability to come up with good hooks. It was around this time that someone I knew was reading Chicago. They pointed out that the plot of Chicago doesn't really start until Chapter 26; that I was "burying the lede." I considered this. My logic, when writing Chicago, was that the Empire moving to take over Washington would be a twist, something that would shock and excite people and change their perception of the entire story.

But did that make sense, when really the story was "about" that twist? Didn't that just make everything before the twist harder to get into for a reader? Chicago might look radically different if I revealed the Empire's goals immediately, but it would also probably be a more immediately engaging work. I'm a big fan of delayed gratification in storytelling, but had I taken it too far?

This was a major revelation for me, and immediately I understood what I needed to do for my Pokémon story: move up the cult plotline. Place it front and center. Name the whole story after it even. I decided on framing the opening scene from Toril's perspective, depicting Aracely initially more as an alien other, emphasizing the fact that she was in a cult rather than hide it behind foreshadowing. This could also lead to Aracely and Toril having more of a dual protagonist setup, which would make my planned two-half finale (one half where Aracely battled "the man who always wins," one half where Toril got involved in stopping the cult's doomsday plot) work even better.

Confidence resurged. At the end of January 2024, my girlfriend of seven years  and I broke up. A few days later, I started writing the sixth—and ultimately final—draft of When I Win the World Ends.

VIII. When I Win the World Ends

Now it's the part of the Making Of where I actually make the thing I'm supposed to be making, but there's a lot less to say about it. Once I have a plan, the actual writing of the story is the easy part, and most of what I wrote—with a few exceptions—looks similar to the story as it exists now.

There were some oddities. I wrote the first seven chapters (everything up to the end of the Jinjiao battle) and then had to take a two week break to write a short piece for a writing contest I had entered in December as part of an effort to stop overthinking WIW. After this interruption, I returned to WIW writing perhaps a bit more perfunctorily than I usually would, leading to an original version of Chapter 8 (the chapter where MOTHER makes her first real appearance) that was short and abbreviated. Later, in editing, I would rewrite most of this chapter.

A few ideas emerged while writing, like the motif of serendipity/Logos, which I felt tied nicely to the ideas of evolution and history. It was also in this draft that I introduced Cely's friends Haydn and Charlie, as a nod to an earlier work of mine also featuring a fashion-obsessed girl from Los Angeles. (Speaking of nods to earlier works, in the original 32-man bracket, Cole Coulter featured as one of the competitors, but he didn't make the 16-man cut.)

The process went smoothly. I finished the draft at the end of May, a little under four months after I started it. I had envisioned the full story as being about 70,000 words, but the draft ended up closer to 115,000. Underestimating story length is just an essential element of the trade, though.

A few days after finishing the draft I went on a four-day Oklahoma Darkness Retreat where I had access to zero electronics. The goal was to think about my story deeply and how it could be improved in the editing process.

In this time chamber, where I did nothing except complete crossword puzzles and read The Recognitions by William Gaddis, I came to a realization. There was one element the story needed that wasn't already there.

That element was Sabrina. In the original draft, Sabrina was not present during the scene where Aracely meets the Old Man. She was mentioned obliquely a couple of times in conjunction with Aracely's "psychic powers," but it never really built to anything. There was still a scene where Aracely was interrogated due to her relationship with MOTHER, but only by nameless goons, and the scene lacked tension as it was clear Aracely could talk circles around them.

When I returned from Oklahoma, I prepared for my conception of Sabrina as a character by writing an 8,000 word short story from her perspective, which hashed out an entire backstory for her. Then, I started editing the draft.

For me, a lot of editing is just polish. Usually, cutting out needless sentences and fixing clunky ones, as well as emphasizing a few of the more understated themes and motifs. For instance, during editing, I made slight additions to emphasize the thematic connection between Aracely's suicide attempt and the global war that almost destroyed the world, as well as the connection between the moon and cyclical insanity (lunacy, etymologically, being related to the moon). I made the Old Man more of a Walt Disney-esque figure (from my notes: "a dying Disney"), rewriting much of his dialogue to either be direct quotes or to evoke his ideals. I also expanded on several of the scenes where Toril and Aracely interact to make their relationship more complex and nuanced. I gave MOTHER some new dialogue, including her speech in Chapter 18 about loving a child for the potential it promises, while also paradoxically wanting it to remain a child forever.

The largest changes were in the three chapters I almost fully rewrote. The first was Chapter 8, which as I mentioned earlier was overly terse. In the original draft, it depicted MOTHER as more pathetic, more dependent on Aracely. I decided to make her a more threatening figure, and incorporated a few references to the Moloch sacrifice scene from Valle Verde to make her seem more like a false idol. Similarly, I rewrote Chapter 12, which was originally a very short chapter that focused solely on a conversation between MOTHER and Nilufer that ended with the order to kidnap Aracely. In rewriting the chapter to include Fiorella, I gave myself more opportunity to flesh out the respective philosophies of her and MOTHER (including some of the story's most salient discussions about why cults exist), as well as give more of an insight into the inner workings of RISE as an organization. And lastly, I fully rewrote Chapter 19 to include Sabrina.

The last changes I made in editing were to the final chapter. When I finished the final draft of the story, I sent it to several readers, many of whom had looked at the original drafts of the first chapter, as well as julirites, the author of a Fargo fan fiction called London. There was an immediate and minor backlash to the final chapter, which was originally much more pessimistic, from most people who read it. In the original version, Aracely and Toril were not still in communication. (Fiorella was also dying of cancer instead of jockeying to replace the Old Man.) The finale had a much more somber, sedate, tragic note. Juli and 7th disliked this sad ending, while Gazemaize wanted me to cut the final chapter altogether. I felt confident that the final chapter was necessary, though, and revised it to its current version, which was much better liked.

And then... the story was finished, near the end of July. I crunched the numbers and realized that if I posted two chapters to start and then did a twice-weekly posting schedule, I could end the story serendipitously on October 12. So I did.

IX. Names and Special Thanks

In my Making Of post for Cleveland Quixotic, I had a fairly extensive list of where I got all the character and place names from. The list is a lot less extensive here; most names I constructed for the purpose of sounding evocative, rather than taking them from someplace specific. For instance, I chose the name Aracely Sosa because it sounds like whistling with its repeated S sounds, compared to Toril Lund which is a lot harsher with its consonants. You can see a similar rationale behind names like Fiorella Fiorina, Yui Matsui, and even some of the background characters, like Jacq Ray Johnson, Jr., where there is a lot of emphasis on alliteration and rhyme.

There are a couple of exceptions. Jinjiao is the in-game ID of a longtime Chinese League of Legends pro of middling notability. He picked the name (which means "Golden Horn") as a reference to the Golden Horned King, a villain from Journey to the West.

Lutz, Fiorella's cameraman, was named after an extremely minor character from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, who is not playable and only appears in a singular cutscene before being killed. They are so irrelevant that despite naming a character after them, I actually forgot their name, which is Lotz, not Lutz.

Haydn is named after the famous classical composer.

Special thanks to 7th and Elick320 for helping me with the teams and battles. Thanks to Gazemaize and julirites, among others unnamed, for reading and providing feedback. And thank you all for enjoying the story.

[nobodyfamousposts]

The Hero of Paris

...so when Gabriel was in the bathroom on that train when he transformed and tried to akumatize someone...

...you think anyone could have just...I dunno, recorded it?

__________________________

Michael Donahue was the hero of Paris.

In truth, he was an American tourist. And about as American as one could get.

And AS a young American in a foreign country, he did what most Americans do: abuse his phone's camera function for anything and everything he thought was interesting and likely to get him likes on social media.

He recorded a man feeding pigeons before being run off by a police officer.

He recorded some curator at a museum telling a wild fanfic idea at the Louvre.

He recorded a bunch of people chasing after a blond haired kid and screaming at the sight of him. Which...okay, weird?

Well, he'd known Paris would be weird. But he didn't think it'd be THIS weird.

But then THAT day happened. And what he thought was perhaps the silliest…even the downright dumbest thing ended up being what made him go viral in the last way he ever expected.

Some would consider it uncouth. Most would have just politely ignored it.

But Micheal was a young American with a need to record everything.

And he was already in his seat in a train waiting for it to depart for his next travel destination...only to be delayed due to some reason that he, not being French-speaking, didn't understand.

Ultimately, that made this the perfect combination of bored and impulsive in JUST the right way to achieve a miracle.

So when he heard what sounded like shouting and insane laughter coming from the bathroom on the train, Michael—in true American fashion, decided to record it.

"Dude, some guy has taken over one of the restrooms and is yelling like crazy!"

…and for the sheer hell of it, he started livestreaming.

And his chat started to come alive.

What's going on?

"The train's held up. My French isn't that good. An 'akuma' or something?"

What's an akuma?

He looked over his shoulder.

"I dunno. But that guy in the restroom has been shouting about it a lot."

On the other side of the door, the faint sound of yelling could be heard. Most of it garbled that Michael couldn't quite make out except for a few words.

"—akuma—"

"—Ladeebuug!"

What's he shouting?

"Something about Ladybugs and noir? Is he shooting a movie or complaining of a lack of pest control? Lol."

Out of all his vids and livestreams, he hadn't expected the one about some random making a scene in a bathroom to be the one that got attention, but more people were joining the chat and he saw his numbers rise more than they ever had.

"Wow. Okay. Didn't expect to get this level of response."

He made sure to keep the camera on the bathroom door the noises were coming from rather than himself. It was what the people wanted to see apparently and it allowed better audio quality.

What was perhaps the most interesting was that he started getting comments in French.

In all caps.

With many exclamation points.

Is this real!?

HAWK MOTH!

IT'S HAWK MOTH!

WHERE IS HE?!

"Hawk Moth? What?"

Then a particularly insistent commenter named LadyWifi joined and started to spam the chat.

Où est-ce?

Où est-ce?!!

OÙ EST-CE!!!

"Wait hold on. What?"

Où

où!

WHERE?!

WHERE IS IT

OÙ

wherewherewerewhere?!!!!!!!!11!!1

He balked at the repeated demands. Given the chat seemed to be repeatedly questioning where in English, he could only presume that's what they were asking in French, too. But he had no idea why and no explanation was forthcoming! Any attempts anyone made to tell him what was going on quickly got lost in the flood of comments demanding a location.

Before he could comment further though, his thoughts were interrupted by a cry of outrage from the restroom, loud enough to ring his ears.

Silence.

Then…

"Nooroo, detransform moi."

There was a strange sound from inside. Muffled, but distinct enough. Like how sparkles should sound? Something from one of those magical girl shows his little sister watches.

A click signaled the door unlocking.

"I think he's about to come out!"

The chat was going wild. Everyone commenting. Making random names? Maybe trying to guess who the person on the other side of the door was?

Then some blond guy in glasses and a really unfashionable suit came out of the restroom.

…and his livestream promptly exploded.